BARNSTORMING

The scales are falling away from a lot of
eyes as many diehard Bushies are beginning to understand a certain Messianic
admonition to beware the wolves who cover their naked ambitions with designer
sheepskins. What brought about this change? Hurricane Katrina was certainly the catalyst, but the
answer is--perhaps-- a bit more metaphysical.

Ill try to
wrap up quickly, but this is an epic story about a war on reality: a battle
pitting image, against image and icon against icon.

From the
beginning BushCo has controlled its public image by carefully manipulating all
associated images. Some examples: covering naked Justice; covering
Picassos Guernica;
the endless repetition of 9/11;
conflating Saddam
with Osama; embedding journalists to make them indebted to and dependant on
the troops; Shock & Awe; fabricating
heroes; toppling Saddams statue;
destroying an embarrassing mural of George
H.W. Bush in Baghdad; forbidding the media to photograph returning coffins,
or body bags; loyalty
oaths; 1st-Ammendment-zones;
and the careful staging one faked-up
photo-op after another.
Of course the mass-mediated world is too kaleidoscopic to be tamed and you
can't stifle every story or control every image. But when youre an expert divider
operating under the guise of a compassionate uniter total control isn't
necessary. To cast their magic spell BushCo only had to transform the debate
over debatable
realities into THE ONLY REALITY:
to establish a logical system of support for the infamous query, Who you gonna
believe, me, or your lyin eyes?: To keep a lazy, convenience-spoiled, and
ferociously DIVIDED nation fighting tooth and claw to
determine what the meaning of the word is is.

And along
came Katrina, andas they sayEVERYTHING CHANGED.

This wasnt
a Tsunami on the other side of the globe where some rubble-strewn photos, and a
whole lot of cash flung in the right direction can unite freedom-loving
Americans in a rousing chorus of, We Are the World. This is our back yard,
and its pretty hard to spin away the Mayor of New Atlantis breaking down and
asking, Where's the Goddamn support?

Bush was on vacation
when Katrina hit. When the levees broke and bodies started floating in the
streets Vice President Cheney was also on some sort of double secret non-vacation
vacation in Wyoming. Condi, on the other hand, was tripping the light
fantastic in New York, catching up on her Broadway musicals, and buying
$1000 shoes.

You cant deny or trivialize a
sunken city and a million homegrown refugees with a story to tell. You cant
bring Ann Coulter
in to say, Those Cajuns are whiney little wimps who got what they deserved.

Our nations ability to respond quickly and efficiently to
catastrophe is no longer an abstract
talking point.

No misunderstandings, please. I
dont see this tragedy as some sort of grand political victoryat least not the
kind that any sane, compassionate person could ever celebrate. Still, Im
inclined to spill a dram on the ground, and call the piper: Dixie, please to
a Dixieland beat.